Stuyvesant had a house at the very end of lower Manhattan, because, I assumed that he had a farm (bowery) attached to his home. I couldn’t reconcile the fact that Wyntie was baptized at the General’s Bouwerij and not at the church in the fort. The church in the fort was within walking distance of Peter Stuyvesant’s home.
New Amsterdam 1660
Fortunately I found on the Internet a magazine, Americana. (See below.) As I read it, I realized that Stuyvesant’s Bouwerij was outside of the city wall. I also knew that Pieter Stoutenburg had a house and lot outside the city wall. Families that lived outside the wall were subject to attacks by aborigines. New Amsterdam afforded protection to its inhabitants against these attacks, but not for those who lived outside the wall.
There apparently was some pressure by Thomas Hall and Wolfert Webber to provide protection to those who lived outside the wall. On May 3, 1660, the New Amsterdam council allowed a village to be established near Augustyn Heermans’ bouwerij and that of the Director-General. The village was established to provide a place in which the sparsely spaced inhabitants could go for protection from attack. The village was established in the triangle formed by present day 3rd Avenue, 4th Avenue and St. Mark’s Place. The village included a blacksmith shop, a tavern, and a schoolhouse.
Stuyvesant erected a chapel on his bouwerij in which he solicited Domine Selyns to preach to the inhabitants on Sunday afternoons. In addition to preaching on Sunday afternoons, Domine Selyns performed marriages and baptisms at Stuyvesant’s bouwerij. He returned to the Netherlands in 1664 after the British took control.
Although he returned to New York City in 1682 to be minister of the Reformed Dutch congregation, when in 1664 he departed, his records were transferred to the church at the fort and copied into its baptismal record book.
The magazine also indicated that Pieter was an elder at the Stuyvesant Bouwerij congregation and that he and others joined the church at the fort after Selyns returned to Europe.
Source: The Hamlet at the Bouwerij, Part I by Hopper Striker Mott. Americana Volume 10, July 1915. New York City: The National Americana Society. Pages 660-676. (See below.)
